In comments to reporters before the Monday hearing, Trump spoke about a disclaimer in his financial statements that are at issue in the trial.
Trump said, “We have a clause in the contract, it’s like a buyer beware clause. It says, ‘When you take a look at the financial statement, don’t believe anything you read’ — this is up front. ‘Don’t believe anything you read.’ Some people call it a ‘worthless clause,’ because it makes the statement, and anything you read in the statement, worthless. It says, ‘Go out and do your own research, go out and do your own due diligence, you have to study the statement carefully. Do not believe anything.’”
He said moments later that the clause “immediately takes you out of any fraud situation and any litigation.”
Facts First: Trump inaccurately described this clause, as Judge Arthur Engoron noted in a ruling last week in which he found Trump liable for fraud. The clause does not say “don’t believe anything you read,” its actual language is significantly softer than Trump claimed. And there is no apparent basis for Trump’s suggestion that the clause inoculates him against any litigation at all.
